Emancipation Proclamation made 150 years ago by President Abraham Lincoln

[media-credit name=”The Denver Post file photo” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] One of the most valuable documents in the National Archives is this original of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln.

On January 1, 1863, a proclamation started the United States on a new path, one of equality for all. The Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln declared that people held as slaves in states that had receded from the Union would, from now on, be free.

There was no way to enforce such a proclamation. The Civil War was in the midst of its third year of ghastly conflict. Slavery didn’t end overnight, but became the issue that raised the stakes of the already terrible war. More years of fighting would ensue. The North would eventually prevail in preserving the Union of states. But it would be decades, even a century, before civil rights of all Americans began to level.

On this day, the first of a new year, we remember this remarkable document of our history, enacted 150 years ago.

[media-credit name=”The Denver Post file photo” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] A copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln is seen on the wall of the Oval Office in the White House above a bust of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.